Viral

"This is amazing!" Vignette Valencia said. "Just look!" Vignette held out her mobile phone.

On the screen, a green-haired girl ran across a parking lot, waving a knife in one hand. She shouted, "If you don't bring back my zucchini squash right now, I'll--" She slipped, falling on the knife and stabbing herself. It looked like an accident...probably?

It also looked like after her slip-and-slide, she was lying in a pool of her own blood...and was very, very dead.

"What the fuck?" Wallflower said. "That's not me. Who IS that? Where did you get this?" She grabbed for the phone, but Vignette snatched it away.

"Some computer hacker stole, like, terabytes of data from a secret research lab, and uploaded it to Wickedpeeks. And this was part of the data. Amazing, huh?"

"It makes me so angry!" Wallflower shouted. "I could just KILL SOMEONE!"

"Just don't run around waving a big knife!" Vignette said. "Because we've seen where THAT can lead to."

***

"You have to understand," Twilight Sparkle said, as she fidgeted with her glasses. "I mean, I have to ASK you to understand...I was only trying to help."

"Help how? And what did YOU have to do with those videos?" Wallflower fumed. "Are YOU the computer hacker who put those files on the internet?"

"No!" Twilight said. "I'm the researcher who created a secret project to peek into alternate universes and possible futures. I wanted to see near future worlds that show all the different ways our world could turn out, if things go wrong. I thought, by seeing the mistakes different possible versions of us might make, we can take those mistakes as a warning, and try to avoid making those mistakes ourselves."

"So you decided to make videos of me dying, again and again."

Twilight shrugged. "What can I say? So many of your near alternate world selves are...accident prone. So you seemed to be a good subject to focus in on. I don't know anyone else who kills themself as much as you do."

Two teenagers walked past. "This video proves it!" one said. "It IS possible to kill yourself by shoving that many Fizzlemints into your...you know, and pouring lots of diet soda inside. Literal full body aneurysm."

"Turn that off!" Wallflower shouted. The two passersby stared at her, and ran. "Don't let her get near you!" one of them screamed. "She knows over fifty bajillion ways to kill a man! She's literally the most lethal person on earth!"

"Look on the good side!" Twilight said. "At least you're getting...some respect? Of a sort?"

"Sure," Wallflower grumbled. She glanced at another passerby, who fainted.

***

"Oh no!" the green haired girl in the video said. "I think I accidentally only partly on purpose swallowed poison! I'd better call the Poison Control Center right away!" She stabbed at a phone's lock screen with her index finger.

"I...can't get in. What's wrong with my lockscreen? Why won't this thing WORK, damn it?"

She poked and swiped at the screen again and again.

A few minutes later, she collapsed.

The video cut to a view of Vignette Valencia in her home studio. "And THAT is why you should always remember how to access your phone's emergency dialing functions. Because otherwise..." She shrugged. "THAT could happen to you," she said cheerfully.

"Hilarious," Wallflower said. "I hate her."

Sunset scowled. "You should sue her. Sue for a cut of her EweToob and TackTok revenue. She owes you. Lately you're about eighty percent of her total content. Without you, she'd be nothing."

"But it isn't ME," Wallflower grumbled. "It's OTHER worlds' versions of me. You can tell the difference between them and me, because I'm not dead."

Sunset admitted, "I suppose that's true..."

"Also, I already went to talk to her about it. Since she's terrified of me just like everyone else is, she agreed to cut me in for a third of the money she's making. Which I guess is about the best I can hope for? She said she'd LIKE to pay me more, but her fancy makeup and outfits and studio costs and all the rest of her constant shopping habits are expensive." Wally shrugged. "I guess it could be better, could be worse."

"There's got to be something we could do," Sunset said. "Some way to take the attention off of just you."

***

In front of Canterlot Mall, Sunset shouted, "Step right up! Step right up! Find out some of the ways YOU might die! Learn what NOT to do, before it's too late. The life you save might be your own!"

Twilight tried to hide under the table. "This is embarrassing," she whispered.

Hiding under the table next to Twilight, Wallflower said, "You think YOU'RE embarrassed? Are YOU the star of literally fifty terabytes of snuff videos everyone is watching all day and all night?"

"Well..." Twilight blushed.

Sunset reached under the table to tap Twilight's shoulder. "Look lively! We've got a customer who needs to know how to save his own life. Come on up here and help him out. Save a life, Twilight!"

Twilight looked up at a familiar face. "Mister Cranky?"

"Hi, Twilight. I just thought...twenty bucks isn't much, for some safety education. I've always assumed someday YOU would be the one teaching ME something important. I just didn't know it would be quite this soon."

"Um," Twilight said.

Cranky handed Sunset a twenty. "Please?"

"Well...ok." Twilight tapped on a laptop keyboard. "Should I send this to your mobile?"

Five minutes later, he watched a video of himself doing a Michael Jackson style dance routine on a stage at Canterlot High. Behind him, a smoke machine belched dark clouds, followed by tongues of fire.

"My toupee!" Cranky wailed, as the flames consumed him head-first.

"So we learned something important today!" Sunset said. "Be careful with smoke machines. If they aren't adjusted right, they could literally burn down the school."

"I have to admit," Cranky said, "if I edit this footage, and bring in my brother's heavy metal band...I think it could make a good music video."

"Sure," Sunset said. "You're a satisfied customer, right?"

"Um...I guess about as satisfied as a person can be, after watching himself die."

Sunset clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't forget to give us good reviews on Whelp, Bestcrap, and Bizzy!" She turned away from him. "Next customer please!"

***

Out behind the school, Wallflower poked at her phone. "Look, Sunset. I just did a search for 'best wallflower dies videos,' and...zero recommended results! Isn't that great?"

Sunset beamed. "So the plan worked! Other people find their own deaths more interesting than yours. And more educational, too."

Twilight said, "Just in the last few months, death rates in Canterville are already down by at least ten percent. If we expand our business...we could save thousands of lives every week. Maybe millions, all over the world!"

Wallflower set down her phone, and picked up a gardening trowel. "I'm just happy not to be the center of attention anymore. It's almost like being invisible again...but in a good way."

Author's Note:

Instead of writing a "memey comedy," I wrote a dark comedy about how some memes can be really annoying to the wrong person at the wrong time.

When I post a story about suicide, I often include a link to Monochromatic's "The Choices We Make," both for the story itself, and for the helpful references in the story's author's note. (link)

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